Why Are More And More Women Paying Thousands For Freezing Their Eggs

Thirty-five and single, Sophia Money-Coutts is freezing her eggs. It’s painful and there’s no guarantee it will work. So why are more and more women paying thousands to do it?

- Sophia Money-Coutts

The low point was the night that the needle wouldn’t go into my stomach. It was a Sunday and I’d been injecting myself with hormones for a week. There was a theatre to the procedure that I’d almost come to enjoy. It stung, but not for long, and the sting was normally overtaken by a wave of invincibility. I’d just injected myself! Hardcore! In the unlikely event, I ever found myself in an action film where someone needed to be stabbed in the heart with a shot of adrenaline, I was now up for it.

Except that Sunday night, the needle wouldn’t slide in. I’d been alternating sides of my stomach so the dose of hormones was spread wide, but after a week of treating my abdomen like a pin cushion, every spot felt too sore and I started crying. I’d chosen this. I’d decided to put myself through egg freezing and I’d previously written and talked a lot about what a positive choice it was for a woman like me – 35 and single. And yet here I was, sitting on my bed, suddenly aware that I was doing this alone and I couldn’t even get the bastard needle to work. It felt pathetic.

Then I heard my sister and brother-in-law shouting for their daughters on the other side of my bedroom door. “Bath time!” Another wave of tears. Would I ever shout, “Bath time!” at my own child? Would I have anyone else, an ally, to do it with? Why was I even bothering to freeze my eggs when I’d probably be on my own forever?

Eventually, the 11th time I pressed the needle against my fat, it slid in. I stopped weeping with self-pity and, job done, went back to bingeing The Sopranos on my laptop in bed. Phew, what a palaver.